Video Game Studies, Digital Cultures, RPG/LARP, & Fandom Roundup #5

Here is another list of various links that I have come across in the past few months (see previous Roundups here: Roundup #4: http://www.edmondchang.com/2018/07/11/video-game-studies-digital-cultures-rpg-larp-fandom-roundup-4/, Roundup #3: http://www.edmondchang.com/2017/03/17/video-game-studies-digital-cultures-rpglarp-fandom-roundup-3/, Roundup #2: http://www.edmondchang.com/2016/08/20/video-game-studies-digital-cultures-fandom-roundup-2/, and Roundup #1: http://www.edmondchang.com/2016/02/13/video-game-studies-and-digital-cultures-roundup-1/):

Video Games

Activision Blizzard cuts nearly 800 jobs amid ‘record results in 2018’
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18222484/activision-blizzard-layoffs-cuts-jobs-record-results-2018

How A Medieval Video Game Can Help Us Think About The Past
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewgabriele/2019/01/27/medieval-video-game-think-about-past/#3987d9783cb8

Second Annual Business of Games Summit brings renowned gaming experts to Ohio University Feb. 22
https://www.ohio.edu/compass/stories/18-19/01/Gaming-Summit-2019.cfm

E-Sports Is the New Premed
http://fortune.com/2019/01/29/e-sports-is-the-new-premed/

This Absurdly Cute Game Puts Players in Charge of a Day Spa for Marshmallows
https://community.extra-life.org/articles.html/gamingnews/this-absurdly-cute-game-puts-players-in-charge-of-a-day-spa-for-marshmallows-r1848/

UK Linguists Awarded NEH Grant for Video Game Concept
https://uknow.uky.edu/professional-news/uk-linguists-awarded-neh-grant-video-game-concept?utm_medium=social

Six of 2018’s best new books about video games
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/dec/19/six-of-2018s-best-new-books-about-video-games?CMP=share_btn_tw

Guy Counts Every Ellipsis You Have To See To Finish Xenogears
https://kotaku.com/guy-counts-every-ellipses-you-have-to-see-to-finish-xen-1830910221

Games of Color/Nerds of Color

Amazon’s questionable MMO has you colonize the ‘new world’
https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/8/18216053/new-world-game-mmo-impressions-preview-colonization-controversy

Exclusive preview: Octavia E. Butler’s prescient Parable books get gorgeous reissue
https://ew.com/books/2019/02/25/parable-octavia-butler-reissue/

What It’s Like To Write About Race And Video Game
https://kotaku.com/what-its-like-to-write-about-race-and-video-games-1832886047

“Black Panther” Designer Hannah Beachler Is the First Black Person to Win a Production-Design Oscar
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/oscars-2019-black-panther-designer-hannah-beachler-first-black-person-win-production-design

Love as Political ResistanceLessons from Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler
https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/love-time-political-resistance/transform-valentines-day-lessons-audre-lorde-and-octavia

A cosplay sisterhood mashes up Black Panther and Sailor Moon and it’s amazing
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-cosplay-sisterhood-mashes-up-black-panther-and-sailor-moon-and-its-amazing

A little girl from West Philly grew up to become TV’s first black lesbian superhero
https://www.phillyvoice.com/little-girl-west-philly-who-became-tvs-first-black-lesbian-superhero/

Marlon James’ ‘Black Leopard, Red Wolf’ unleashes an immersive African myth-inspired fantasy world
https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-black-leopard-red-wolf-marlon-james-review-20190103-story.html

Marvel Comics Introduces Indigenous Superhero
https://www.voanews.com/a/marvel-comices-introduces-indigenous-superhero/4405374.html

Photos of dark-skinned deities challenge India’s obsession with fairness
https://qz.com/india/1512700/facebook-photo-series-questions-indias-fair-skin-fetish/

https://www.tor.com/2019/01/03/excerpts-ken-liu-broken-stars-new-anthology-of-chinese-sf/

Wing Luke Museum highlights Asian Pacific Americans in sci-fi in ‘Worlds Beyond Here’
https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/visual-arts/wing-luke-museum-highlights-asian-pacific-americans-in-sci-fi-in-worlds-beyond-here/

‘Angry Goy 2’ Neo-Nazi Video Game Lets Users Kill LGBT People and Minorities to Save Donald Trump
https://www.newsweek.com/charlotesville-crying-nazi-hosts-video-game-allowing-users-kill-lgbt-people-1212855

Nintendo Says It Will Remove Racist Native American Animation From Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
https://kotaku.com/nintendo-says-it-will-remove-racist-native-american-ani-1830282076

Dungeons, dragons and diversity: How the world’s most influential RPG turned the tables on inclusion
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/dungeons-dragons-diversity-worlds-influential-rpg-turned-tables-inclusion/

Octavia Butler Is Finally Heading to TV, Thanks to Ava DuVernay
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/08/ava-duvernay-octavia-butler-tv

Gay Black Men Helped Create EDM. Why Do Straight White Men Dominate It?
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/pride/8460757/gay-black-men-edm-influence-history

Queer Games/Gender and Games

Steam game about raping women will test Valve’s hands-off approach
https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/4/18249916/rape-day-steam-valve

Players Who Hate Overwatch‘s Brigitte Are Harassing Her Voice Actress
https://kotaku.com/players-who-hate-overwatchs-brigitte-are-harassing-her-1832939304

The Internet Reacts To Soldier 76 And His Ex-Boyfriend
https://kotaku.com/the-internet-reacts-to-soldier-76-and-his-ex-boyfriend-1831557833

This new video game helps you understand what it’s like to have gender dysphoria
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/05/14/video-game-pink-white-or-blue-gender-dysphoria-transgender/

Sex lives and video games: first exhibition of LGBTQ gaming history opens in Berlin
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jan/04/rainbow-arcade-lgbtq-video-games-exhibition-world-of-warcraft-nintendo-berlin

This Black, Gay Furry Is Now the LeBron James of Gaming
https://www.out.com/popnography/2018/12/07/sonicfox-best-esports-player-game-awards

A Sexy Cyberpunk Dating Sim About (And By) Trans Folk
https://kotaku.com/a-sexy-cyberpunk-dating-sim-about-and-by-trans-folk-1830309223

Nerd Culture / Fandom

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/arts/design/tolkien-exhibition-morgan-library-and-museum.html
Tolkien’s World: An Exhibition Transports Us to Middle-earth
J.R.R. Tolkien — the artist, the writer, the scholar — is the subject of an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum. The show is a comprehensive view of his alternate reality.
Science fiction has come alive in our modern world—from robots in our homes to the search for life across the universe. Current projects at the UW show that some literary fantasies will soon be reality.
https://www.themarysue.com/captain-marvel-review-bomb/

Discover Otherworld: A Science-Fiction Art Installation Landing In Central Ohio
https://radio.wosu.org/post/discover-otherworld-science-fiction-art-installation-landing-central-ohio

Joe Manganiello on his Dungeons & Dragons obsession: ‘When I was a kid it wasn’t cool’
https://sports.yahoo.com/joe-manganiello-dungeons-ampamp-dragons-obsession-kid-wasnt-cool-130122211.html

Disney Princesses Play ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ in Delightful Video Short
https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/01/03/dungeons-and-dragons-disney-princesses/

Eight Leadership Lessons You Can Learn From ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/goldiechan/2018/12/11/8-leadership-lessons-dnd/#2922cd9a7015

How women are taking on the world of Dungeons and Dragons
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/29/how-women-are-taking-on-the-world-of-dungeons-and-dragons.html

Fantasy literature applicable to real world with help of LARPing
https://www.thepostathens.com/article/2018/10/larping-english-class-ohio-university

Study suggests Russian trolls helped amplify the Last Jedi “backlash”
https://news.avclub.com/study-suggests-russian-trolls-helped-amplify-the-last-j-1829453731

Brie Larson Was Told to Smile, So She Put Smiles onto Marvel Dudes
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gynvnw/brie-larson-was-told-to-smile-so-she-put-smiles-onto-marvel-dudes

Philip Pullman: why we believe in magic
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/01/the-limits-of-reason-philip-pullman-on-why-we-believe-in-magic?CMP=share_btn_tw

The Hugo Awards just made history, and defied alt-right extremists in the process
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/21/17763260/n-k-jemisin-hugo-awards-broken-earth-sad-puppies

Netflix’s She-Ra creator adapted a Dungeons & Dragons character for the show
https://ew.com/tv/2018/08/19/netflix-she-ra-dungeons-dragons/

Digital Cultures/Cyberculture

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/magazine/women-coding-computer-programming.html
The Secret History of Women in Coding

Popular RPG Site ‘Roll20′ Allegedly Had 4 Million Users’ Information Stolen
https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/02/15/roll20-dungeons-and-dragons-password-breach/

Bots Are Terrible at Recognizing Black Faces. Let’s Keep it That Way
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bots-are-terrible-at-recognizing-black-faces-lets-keep-it-that-way

Amazon Facial Recognition Software Used By Law Enforcement Has Racial Bias, Per Report
https://www.newsweek.com/racial-bias-found-amazon-facial-recognition-software-used-law-enforcement-1306407

The Other Art History: The Forgotten Cyberfeminists of ’90s Net Art
https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/the-other-art-history/the-other-art-history-the-forgotten-cyberfeminists-of-90s-net-art-55864

Black Mirror’s “Bandersnatch” Is the Perfect Netflix Show
https://slate.com/culture/2018/12/black-mirror-bandersnatch-review.html

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch could become Netflix’s secret marketing weapon
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/2/18165182/black-mirror-bandersnatch-netflix-interactive-strategy-marketing

These People Are Not Real—They Were Created By AI
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mby4q8/these-people-were-created-by-nvidia-ai

How these humanities graduates are finding jobs in Silicon Valley
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-these-humanities-graduates-are-finding-jobs-in-silicon-valley

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